Thus Opened the Hearts of Many
by peacelight24
Summary: The people who love Naruto discover it in different ways, time and again, and across lifetimes as a lonely blond boy takes fate into his own hands. A series of one-shots about how Naruto's precious people came to love him. Cannon relationships.
1. Uzumaki Kushina

Uzumaki Kushina waited impatiently for the stick to turn, tapping it against the sink to get it to go faster.

She was sure it would come back negative. She was sure.

The only reason she was testing in the first place was because she was late and she'd thrown up three times in two days. It was probably just a bug, but she wanted to be sure.

She and Minato were not trying to get pregnant at the moment. Not that they were _opposed_ to the idea, but there was too much going on right now. Besides, her being a Jinchurriki meant there was a certain risk involved. Minato was still trying to establish himself as Hokage, bringing a child into the matter would complicate things.

Still. She wasn't stupid. The throwing up could be morning sickness, and she was four days late now.

She tapped the stick a little harder, trying to focus on not using any chakra-enhanced strength rather than the outcome of the test.

Just thirty more seconds.

She looked.

One of the bathroom tiles cracked under her feet as her chakra reacted to her emotions.

A child.

Dear kami, she was pregnant.

What was she going to do? She'd just been promoted to ANBU. Pregnant women were not allowed in the corps. They were too valuable to the village. And she'd probably end up taking at least a couple months to recover raise the kid after it was born. So…a full year off, at minimum? How was she going to keep her skills up? What would Minato think about this?

She fought to keep her breathing calm as she placed a hand on her belly. It was flat. There was no evidence of a child.

But it was there. She could feel it with chakra, as energy that normally routed to the seal containing the kyuubi instead fed to a tiny cluster of cells. It was vibrating.

The baby was too early in development to have a nervous system, and much too young to have a chakra network, let alone the coils. Still…everything alive had chakra. And chakra reacted to chakra. She connected hers with the baby's developing system gently, just barely brushing the child.

The answering flare sent her to her knees, right there on the bathroom floor.

Because _oh_ , it was so bright, so innocent, so very beautiful. Her eyes closed and she tried to picture the baby. It was a boy, she was fairly certain. Blond hair, blue eyes, and a happy smile that resembled Minato's and a mischievous grin that reminded Kushina of herself. His face would be like her father's—round through childhood, before narrowing into a strong square jaw as he grew older.

He would be bright, and kind. He would be everything, everything she could ever want in a child. Someone who played pranks, who cleaned up the mess afterword, and who viewed respect as something earned, not freely given. Stubborn, bull-headed. Someone who loved easily, and more kindly than she herself did. Charismatic like Minato. Genuine like him too.

Everything in her ached with a need to hold this baby, to see him, to love him.

This was a change she'd been unprepared for—one she'd never expected. Women often said a child changes a person, but she'd never understood.

Now she did.

This—this feeling, like absolutely nothing but this one child mattered, was all-consuming. This child was _hers_ , hers and Minato's and Kushina would be damned if she let anything happen to such a precious baby.

She cried. Just one single, joyful tear, as everything about who she was changed to revolve around the adorable little parasite she was carrying.

"Hello, baby." She whispered, smiling. "I'm your mommy."

* * *

She was choking on her own blood.

Well, that and a few other things were wrong with her.

Kushina wanted to ask Minato if it had worked, if their baby was safe and if his future was secured. But she was afraid it had, and if it did then Minato was gone.

She wanted no confirmation that Minato had beaten her to the grave. That would break her, and in the last few moments of her life she could afford to be a coward but she couldn't afford to break.

Kushina became vaguely aware that someone was moving her, trying to get her to respond. She tried speaking, but she couldn't get enough air. She tried to focus her eyes instead.

There was a face she absolutely had to see again before she died.

She swung her gaze clumsily. Her eyes seemed to be impossible to control. She couldn't keep her gaze locked.

There. The altar was right there. Her baby was there too. Hers. Her little Naruto. The most precious creature in the world.

"Baby," she finally breathed. "Where…?"

It was only when Sandaime-sama picked the newborn up and brought him to her that she noticed he was there.

She couldn't move her arms, or she would have held them out to take her child one last time.

Kushina did not cry. The energy expended would be a waste, and it would cloud her vision of her child.

Sarutobi-sama said something. It was not important enough to answer him.

"Naruto…" she whispered. She wanted so badly to be there for him, to be his mother. "My baby…"

Kami there was so much to say. So much she would never get to do for her child, and so much that now might never be done.

And he was a Jinchurriki. She alone knew the pain that brought. She would not be there to protect him. He had to have love, he absolutely had to. Someone must fill him with love, fill the hole in his heart that the Kyuubi wrought just as Minato did for her.

This was one last thing she could do for him. She could make sure he was loved.

She tore her gaze from the baby, expending measured seconds to give him this one last thing. She locked eyes with Sarutobi-sama, demanding he listen to this last directive by her force of will.

"Make him loved, Sandaime-sama," she ordered as fiercely as she could manage. "Let him be _loved_."

She said it hungrily, desperately, but didn't dwell on it. Instead she returned her gaze to the most important thing in the world.

 _Naruto_ , she wanted to say, but she had no more air to spend. _I love you like no one has loved before_.

For what could she do but love her child? She'd spent so much time alone. She was a foreigner and a Jinchurriki; she knew what it was to be alone.

She wanted so much better for Naruto.

She couldn't focus on that. She would not die in despair. She would die as she lived—looking forward, finding hope, and holding it.

Naruto was going to be great. She could feel it. With their deaths, she and Minato bought him the tools he needed to meet his destiny and battle it down. It was worth it. It had to be.

She was Uzumaki Kushina of Uzushio and Konoha, and the Jinchurriki of the Kyuubi no Kitsune, an elite shinobi, wife of the Yondaime Hokage and mother of a baby named Naruto.

She died thinking that last accomplishment was the most important of all the things she'd ever done.

* * *

Updated 1-9-2016

This is going to be a series of one shots. Kind of a character study about the people who love Naruto and Naruto himself. There's not going to be any real plot. I also don't know if I'm going to do all the people who love Naruto. Lets face it, that's a lot of people by the end of the series. Some are probably going to be pretty humorous, but there's going to be a wide variety. Most will also be longer than this, since Kushina really needed no convincing to love her baby. Minato is next, and I'll post that in a few days.

Thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear what you thought!

Peace Out guys!


	2. Namikaze Minato

Minato was thrilled when he found out.

Well, thrilled and terrified. But mostly thrilled.

He had been making dinner when his wife walked into the living room and said they were having a baby, that it was most definitely going to be a boy, and he was going to look like Minato and act like both of them but mostly Kushina, and he had better be excited about it or a pregnant Red Hot Habanero was going to kick the Yellow Flash's ass.

"Of course I'm excited," he exclaimed, kissing her again, "but how do you know what he'll be like?" Kushina just rolled her eyes.

"Because I'm his mother, baka! And besides, why would he act like you? I'm way cooler!"

And for a while he absolutely couldn't breathe for happiness, because the thought of a kid like that just seemed so right, so perfect, that he could feel something tight building in his chest. A sort of weird combination of anticipation and joy and nerves maybe. Either way, they didn't have dinner that night, and made excellent use of Kushina's pregnancy hormones.

The Uzumaki clan was known for their ridiculous stamina, and when you added in the pregnancy hormones and the shinobi training they both had, it made for a _very_ healthy sex life. Minato just hoped Jiraiya never put two and two together and used it in one of his books, or the man might find himself castrated courtesy of Kushina.

For the first week everything was fine. The normal anxieties about parenthood came about, but that was overshadowed by his pervasive feeling of joy. Minato, he knew, was a lucky, lucky man.

Then the nightmares started.

Minato was not particularly fond of the more brutal aspects of his shinobi career. He detested killing, but loved Konoha more, so he had done it, and with great skill. He did not get a Flee on Sight order in the bingo books for nothing, and he hadn't ever truly regretted his actions in the war. He would always protect Konoha, and the people within, no matter the cost. Besides, he was a shinobi, and while the majority of them didn't exactly deal in death as the more ignorant civilians liked to think (1), he was a soldier and death was part of the job. And he was one of the best.

That was why the nightmares were so confusing.

He'd had them before, after particularly horrific missions where the deaths of the enemy weighed on him more than he would ever admit, or where a comrade didn't make it home. They'd grown more infrequent as he got older, as he developed the mental callouses needed to do his job. And on the nights where it got to be too much, Kushina held him silently, and giving her support in that uncharacteristically gentle way she had that somehow still betrayed her strength, and reminded him that he was still alive, still had something to live for. He returned the favor when she had her bad nights.

But truthfully, this didn't make any sense. He hadn't actually been on a mission since being named Hokage, and he had long since absorbed the mental trauma of the war into a numb fog that wouldn't be forgotten—war was never forgotten—but wasn't crippling either. He hadn't had a nightmare about Iwa-nin killing Kushina or for _years_.

The old dream was so familiar Minato could recall every detail, down to the kind of clothing, the time of day and the dialogue. He and Kushina would be walking down the streets of Konoha, when Iwa-nin would leap out of the shadows and slit her throat before he could move. It always ended with laughter, and the Iwa nin fading away as he knelt over Kushina's body. In the new and improved version, Kushina held a blond haired blue-eyed baby in her arms, and Minato was made to watch as Iwa-nin drowned his son.

It was horrific, and he uncharacteristically worried that the dreams meant he wasn't supposed to be a father, or that he would be a crappy one.

Inadequacy was an unfamiliar fear for him. He wasn't entirely sure what to do with it.

He had always been taught, it seemed. He learned how to be a shinobi and a teacher from Jiraiya, how to be a Hokage from Hiruzen, and how to be a man from Kushina. She was very adept at hitting him when he was acting like a bad husband, and so he learned _very_ quickly. No one was there to teach him how to be a father. Not even his own, since the old man walked out on him and his mother when he was three.

Minato wanted more than anything to be a good father. The kind of father who seemed to know everything, who laughed with his child, who could teach him everything the kid needed to know in order to deal with the shinobi world. But he had no idea how to do it.

He suffered through the nightmares and worries for a few weeks, with Kushina growing increasingly worried. She tried to help him overcome it, always held him through the nightmares, tried to assure him in that tough-love way of hers that he was going to be a great father.

It didn't really work.

He was thrilled of course. He already felt so much love for this child, his son. It was nigh-soul crushing, and it even surpassed the love he held for his wife. But that only made his anxiety worse, his fears grew, and he was having trouble sleeping even on nights where the nightmares didn't come.

Then one day, Kushina came running to the tower, demanding to see him and despite the possible upcoming crisis with Suna he dragged his wife halfway to the hospital—he wasn't going to try and hiraishin a pregnant woman anywhere—before she managed to tell him she and the baby were fine.

He was kicking.

It was with great reverence that Minato placed his hand on her ballooning belly. Within seconds, the baby started pushing against him, straining through Kushina's skin to kick his hand. He smiled, and very carefully, used a basic medical ninjutsu to connect his chakra system with his child's and his wife's.

It was something like the sun.

Kushina had a ridiculous amount of chakra, and due to the special nature of it that allowed her to cage the Kyuubi properly, it had a sharp edge. Though usually warm and inviting, her chakra felt something like a falsely benign sea that could turn to corrosive acid at any moment.

Naruto, he could tell, would not be the same.

He had deep reserves already, nearly equal to that of the average three-year-old, which was absolutely unheard of to find in an unborn child. But this chakra network was bright, was so deep and warm, and felt a little like a summer wind, carrying the light of the sun in gentle breezes. It was like being pulled into something so genuine, so inherently likable, that he couldn't help but grin and feel content.

His little baby. His child, his little sun.

He wondered if the boy would have wind or water chakra, if he would take after him or Kushina. Wind was rare in Konoha, and he was one of three that had it. Water was more common, but not by much. It was too soon to tell, but either way, his boy would be a surprise on any battlefield.

And it _was_ a boy, he realized. He could feel that through the light diagnostic jutsu he was using here. Kushina had been right, he noted with little surprise. It was, as he'd long since learned, futile to argue with Kushina once she got these little inklings, and more frustrating to him was that she was always right about them. He had a feeling now that she might be right about the rest as well.

What was he going to be like? Would he share more traits with Kushina or him? Would he be able to learn Hiraishin? What were his dreams going to be? Who would he hang out with? What would he like to eat?

The questions went on, and blazed through his mind. He had always loved his son, but now he wanted to get to know him, and see him open his eyes and learn everything about him in the space of a second.

It was, though Minato didn't realize it, the moment that taught him what fatherhood was.

That night he did not sleep. He stayed at the tower with Kushina, because she refused to leave until he did, and drafted a treaty with Iwa that was a helluva lot stronger than the cease-fire that ended the war. With it, Iwa would become a potential ally down the road— _way_ down the road—and would be unable to attack Konoha for at least as long as the current Tsuchikage was alive. Both countries would return the remaining POWs and Konoha, having been very prosperous thanks to their win, would give small financial packages to the families that lost people in the war, as an exchange for the restrictive peace clauses.

It wouldn't, of course, replace the people they lost, but it would at least show Konoha's willingness to help others, even those she bested, and display their overall strength. Other villages may not hold the ideology of the Shodaime, but the Will of Fire could be felt by anyone. Hopefully, it would even begin to foster ties to Iwa, and maybe prevent a future war.

Traditionally, it was the loser of a war that came to the winner with treaties, as a sacrifice to their pride. Minato did not particularly care, thought it was an utterly stupid practice, and completely ignored Danzo when he suggested that Minato cared nothing for Konoha's image.

Minato told him that if he thought hurting the weak was strength, he could get the hell out of Konoha.

And all the while, he thought of his son, his little sun, his Naruto. He was going to make the world a safer place for him until he was strong enough to defend himself and the village if it was the last thing he did.

Iwa and Konoha's ambassador squads met on neutral ground—tea country. Neither Kage came, as that might actually be detrimental to the peace talks, but the ninja sent knew exactly what each of their respective nations was willing to give up for peace, and what they had to go home accomplishing.

The talks went well. Iwa was in bad shape physically, as a lot of the fighting had taken place inside or just outside their borders. Money was tight, and any influx in cash was highly appreciated, especially because welfare benefits for shinobi families now without a provider ate up a good forty percent of their budget. With the treaty, they could focus more effort on rebuilding their infrastructure and stimulating trade. It really was a very good solution, one they had been searching fruitlessly for.

However, they did reject a few of the clauses in the treaty.

They did not dissolve their alliances with Kumo and Kiri. They did not agree to aid Konoha in the case of war. They did not agree to take Konoha nin out of their bingo books.

They did, however, agree to stop actively hunting them, agreed not to attack them in case of another war, and agreed, of course, to never instigate war with Konoha, so long as the current Tsuchikage was in power.

Konoha found these terms perfectly acceptable. The parties returned to their respective homes five days later and delivered the good news to the Kage.

There were celebrations in both villages that night. Minato did not take part in them. He was too busy drafting a treaty with Kumo.

The process was repeated, and ended in a very similar manner. Minato would have sent one to Kiri, but there was too much internal strife there to expect anything to come from any proposed treaty. He would wait until things settled down there before he asked anything of them.

Suna was already an ally, having sided with them against the other two in the war, and none of the smaller nations held any threat against Konoha at the moment.

Minato went to sleep the night Kumo replied with a smile on his face. The nightmares never bothered him again.

Later, many would whisper about how auspicious it was, how _fateful_ , that Minato's love for Naruto had inspired him to look for peace, like so many who came after. When mentioned, Naruto would only stare at them blankly before loudly proclaiming that his "old man" was just being what he always was: an excellent hokage.

His friends looked at him, saw him bear the weight of nations on his shoulders, and couldn't help but wonder if there was something to all that destiny nonsense after all.

Of course, they valued their sanity enough to never say such things around Naruto. The baka would chase them until they acquiesced to the power of individual choice over circumstance or they distracted him with ramen.

* * *

A/N

(1) Many speculate that all the ninja in the series regularly carry out assassination missions and the like. We know that the ANBU certainly do this, seeing as it's in the name, but it does not seem likely that the general ninja population regularly does so, especially against random civilians who have angered someone to the point of putting a hit out on them. Frankly I don't see how it would be possible for a society like that to exist. I think it far more likely that assassination missions are carried out by ANBU at the behest of the Daimyo. Minato's comment here refers to this. There's no denying that ninja kill, but in general it seems to be constrained to fights between other shinobi. If I were a Daimyo, I'd only allow a village to form if they agreed to refuse civilian assassination missions without my stamp of approval. It would be a good way to earn public support and military strength.

So that's Minato's chapter. Like Kushina, Minato needed no convincing to love Naruto. Unlike Kushina, I could tie his actions to some of the overarching themes of Naruto.

Love inspires peace. I don't know how much I can agree with this in practice, but it's a nice thought.

Anyway. Next up is Sarutobi Hiruzen. Review if you liked it, and especially if you didn't! Constructive criticism is always appreciated.

Peace Out guys.


	3. Sarutobi Hiruzen

Sarutobi Hiruzen was retired.

At least, he was supposed to be.

As the once-great man stared at the corpse of his chosen successor, young and powerful body destroyed by the unmistakable marks of the Shinigami, he wondered if he hadn't made the wrong choice after all.

Namikaze Minato had been young. He'd been powerful and nearly unbeatable. He'd been charismatic, simply exuding a warmth that made others want to trust him. Hiruzen had believed his natural leadership would extend to behaving well in the more administrative aspects of the job.

It would seem he was mistaken.

"Minato you fool," he whispered so none of his grief-stricken subordinates would hear, "you've doomed us."

The Yondaime Hokage had not, it would seem, realized that the Hokage must not die—at least, not until there was a viable and obvious successor available. No instead, Namikaze Minato had decided to throw his life and body at the problem and save the village from immediate destruction the easy and noble way, never mind that they would be doomed in the long run. For how could they survive after this without Minato's reputation to protect them? How would the village go on without a Godaime Hokage?

Hiruzen would have to resume the role, until the next generation grew up or one of his students became a viable option.

In the grass next to Minato, with a similar hole through her belly where a seal should be, lay Minato's wife, the previous Jinchurriki. Her long red hair splayed out behind her, and with a pang of pity and sorrow he saw a lock of it clutched in Minato's fist.

She was, by some miracle, just barely alive.

Hiruzen could tell she would not be for long.

One of the other shinobi noticed and rushed to her side. He'd been a member of Minato's private guard, and as such probably knew Kushina quite well.

Kushina did not seem all that aware of her surroundings. Her eyes were unfocused and her breathing came heavily as blood bubbled out of the corners of her mouth and dried on her lips and cheek.

She also seemed to be trying to say something—her mouth was forming words but her lungs were too far gone to make her vocal chords vibrate properly.

The shinobi guard tried to calm her, but this only seemed to agitate her more. Hiruzen marveled at the Uzumaki constitution as she blinked twice, her eyes lifting of fog, and she locked on to a location somewhere behind him.

"Baby…" she finally whispered, "Where…?"

Hiruzen turned around and noticed the altar. A blond baby was at the center, naked and twitching slightly, as if in pain or in the throes of a nightmare. He went to the child, picked him up, and returned to the mother.

Only then did he notice the miniaturized seal on the child's belly.

"He's the new Jinchurriki?" Hiruzen asked. Kushina did not expend the energy to answer. She looked at the baby almost hungrily, grey eyes clouded with pain and sorrow.

"Naruto…" she whispered painfully, "My baby…"

Her eyes suddenly turned to Hiruzen the force within them so powerful that the Sandaime found himself wanting to take a step back. The clarity there was unnatural for a dying woman, who was breathing the very last of her breaths.

"Make him loved, Sandaime-sama," she whispered fiercely, "Let him be _loved_."

She did not wait for an answer, or to witness a confirmation. She simply returned her gaze to her child, the baby waking up slightly in Hiruzen's arms, and her eyes clouded once more with pain and the grasp of death.

She died without receiving a response.

Sarutobi Hiruzen never provided one.

* * *

Two weeks later found the reinstated Sandaime Hokage in his office filling out paperwork. During his three-year retirement, Minato had evidently changed many of the forms to streamline the process. It was frustrating to Hiruzen, who was unused to the new formats. It only reminded him of his age, and the inappropriateness of him taking office again.

There was nothing to be done about it though. No one else from Minato's generation was nearly as accomplished. Most of the ninja from his own students' generation were dead, descript or retired. Orochimaru was a traitor, Tsunade was too wrapped up in her own pain to take care of anyone else, and Jirayah was a wanderer—unsuited to the more sedentary life of the Hokage, and unlikely to actually do the village any good in the position, especially considering the necessity of his spy network. The generation below Minato's was too young and far too inexperienced. Many of them were promoted preemptively, solely due to the needs the war demanded.

That left absolutely no one but him. Technically he could have left the village to Danzo, but his old friend was a warmonger. With him in charge, it would only lead to war, and Konoha could handle no more war.

The weathered man lifted his eyes from the stacks of unfamiliar forms and rubbed his forehead. He just had to hang on to his hat long enough for the next generation to grow in skill and experience, and another heir would become apparent.

Hiruzen studiously ignored the fact that he'd said this almost twenty years ago, when he'd realized none of his students would be taking his place.

A knock on the door. The pattern indicated it was an ANBU.

"Come in."

The door slid open to reveal one of the ANBU promoted in the wake of the Kyuubi. Under normal circumstances the man would never have been promoted at his current skill level. Now he had no choice but to fill the ranks with people who could hit above their weight and learn from the experiences enough to avoid death or at least mission failure.

Konoha needed to appear strong. It was just an illusion, a massive genjutsu against the other nations to prevent them from treading greedily on the Land of Fire's borders.

The ANBU walked silently to the center of the room and bowed, waiting to be acknowledged.

"What is it, Ox?" If he remembered right, Ox was supposed to be watching the village which included a cursory, hourly check on the new Jinchurriki.

Minato had been a seal master and Kushina's maiden name was Uzumaki. If anyone could design a stable seal under enormous pressure, it would be the two of them. Still, they'd both been grievously injured. Not checking the seal would be downright irresponsible.

If the demon got loose a second time, there would be no way to stop it. Redundancy was, in this case, their friend. And besides—the Jinchurriki must be protected.

Of course, none of the ANBU knew _why_ they were checking on the boy. They were not expected to question things that explanations were not provided for, at any rate.

"The orphanage staff have discovered something unusual about the boy. A seal was apparently visible while one of the staff was changing his diaper." Ox shifted uncomfortably. "They're…a superstitious lot, civilians. They think he's possessed."

Hiruzen did not react, and instead leveled a calculating look at the ANBU in front of him. The ANBU had, undoubtedly, drawn his own conclusions about the seal and what it did exactly. He seemed genuinely concerned about the child though, so either they weren't the correct conclusions or he knew a bit more about the sealing arts than his file indicated.

He wrote a letter to the orphanage staff. It was short and straightforward, reminding the recipients that the boy was under his protection and that they were being entrusted with a great task which was important to him. Hopefully it would be enough to convince the staff to at least avoid hurting or neglecting the boy.

He handed the letter to Ox. "Give this to the orphanage's head of staff, then resume your patrol. If he is not being treated normally at your next check-in, let me know."

Ox nodded and stepped forward to accept the letter before using a shunshin to disappear from his office in a swirl of leaves.

Sarutobi held his sigh until his office was empty once more. He set the brush down and allowed himself to bow over his paperwork.

That child…that child was a problem.

In the interests of protecting him from his father's enemies and immediately arousing suspicions regarding the Kyuubi's defeat, Hiruzen had drawn up Naruto's birth certificate with his mother's family name, rather than his father's. In the long run, the Uzumaki clan name would protect Naruto better than the Namikaze name anyway. There was a long-standing, almost involuntary respect for the Uzumaki among skilled shinobi. People would be more hesitant to attack, and especially to kill. The clan's genocide was largely regarded as one of the worst events of recent history, and most shinobi recognized that.

So Naruto was Uzumaki Naruto, rather than Namikaze Naruto. One day he'd be told of his heritage, assuming he could protect himself well enough to handle it.

His true family name alone would be considered an S-ranked secret. His tenant was a wholly other subject.

Kyuubi no Yokou. The Nine-tailed Fox Demon. The beast sealed in the belly of an unassuming, innocent baby only weeks old. Hiruzen had not told anyone of his status as a Jinchurriki.

It was an attempt to honor Kushina's last demand. He knew how Jinchurriki were treated—how Kushina herself had been treated despite the lack of personal experience the villagers had with the beast. Keeping Naruto's status a secret was the best Sarutobi could do for him, in that regard.

Unfortunately, keeping it a secret would cease to be an option soon.

Konoha could not keep up the illusion of strength much longer. Not without concrete evidence that the upcoming generations were just as strong as their predecessors. Rumors were spreading that Minato had managed to destroy the demon—or at least injure it enough that it needed to reform. While an amazing feat which nigh-mythologized a man who was already a legend, it also made Konoha weak.

The Jinchurriki existed for a reason. They were weapons, tools for the village to which they belonged. They were a deterrent against attack, and prevented war. If rumors were allowed to circulate, it would appear to other villages that the leaf had lost their ultimate defense against other villages: the power of the Kyuubi.

Of course, he had hoped that forcing his shinobi to work double-time to make up for their decimated ranks would be sufficient.

He was just as much a fool as his dead successor.

He was getting reports. Iwa was setting up a camp on their borders. They could cross Ame in a two hours and arrive at the gates in five. The spies in Kumo reported increased military activity. Even Kiri seemed to be getting ready for something.

The treaties Minato formed mere months ago seemed to be doing no good. Both Iwa and Kumo were in a bad way. Konoha's current state of injury was probably too tempting to ignore completely.

Hiruzen could understand why they were acting as they were. He had been Hokage too long not to understand.

It simply meant there would be a personal cost—and not only to him.

 _Make him loved._

He would do his best to honor that. But never, ever, at the cost of the village as a whole.

* * *

The top of the Hokage tower had been constructed with speech-giving in mind. The curved monoliths had the visual effect of making the speaker look larger to a crowd of people below. They were also made of chakra-conductive metal, which a Hokage could use to amplify their own jutsu.

Hiruzen had never had to use the second function of the monoliths. Today would be no different.

The head of Naruto's orphanage trembled slightly on the roof behind him. She was an older, plump lady who had very little personal experience with shinobi. She held the child tightly in her arms, but Hiruzen could see a certain rigidity about the action that was not born from unfamiliarity with children. She was holding Naruto because she had to—because it was a duty. There was no love or compassion or even care in her grasp.

It would only get worse after this speech.

Hiruzen walked toward the matron, smiling in a grandfatherly sort of way. The woman seemed to relax a bit, and gave him a shaky smile in return.

Hiruzen continued to smile politely and observed the child in the woman's arms.

Unlike the last few times he'd seen the boy, he was awake, and observing the area around him. Judging from the unusually defined chakra signature, he was agitated, unsure. Hiruzen noted the whisker marks on the boy's cheeks.

Interesting. None of the other Jinchurriki's had developed such markings, nor had Senju Hashirama and Uzumaki Mito's children. Perhaps a new clan birthmark then, like the Akamichi and the Inuzuka?

Perhaps most defining about the child was his coloring. Blond hair and blue eyes, just like his father. This was not the slate colored blue-gray of newborns, but the same exact shade as Namikaze Minato. Like Tsunade, Naruto's Uzumaki coloring seemed to have been suppressed by fair hair and eyes. Fascinating. The characteristic red hair of the Uzumaki seemed to be dominant against everything else.

The boy's blue eyes locked onto Hiruzen, and the month-old baby smiled a precocious, toothless smile. Hiruzen's own became a bit more genuine. Grasping hands moved from gripping the blanket toward the Sandaime.

The orphanage matron rebuked the child, pulling his hands back to the blanket. The baby's chakra signature swung from curious to frustrated. He began to sniffle, but was luckily distracted by the appearance of an ANBU by Hiruzen's side.

"Sandaime-sama, the crowd is readied."

Hiruzen nodded to show he'd heard, and looked to the head of Konoha's smallest, best-funded orphanage. He'd hoped the size and financial stability would allow the child more individual attention.

"Little Naruto here will be an important part of my speech. Please hand him to me when I ask for him."

She bowed awkwardly, trying not to squish the child. "Yes, Hokage-sama."

He approached the railing at the edge of the roof. He was dressed in his official robes, as he did every day. His hat was perched in just the right way so it would block out the sun without obscuring his vision of the crowd. This, too, had been designed for speech-giving.

Hiruzen suspected it was a nod on his predecessor's part to the Hokage's role as liason between the political and military forces in Hi no Kuni. The Hokage must at all times be ready for battle and read to give eulogies. The goal, of course, was to live long enough to allow someone to take one's place.

Minato failed, in that regard. And in doing so left Hiruzen with the awful duty of using his son as bait.

It was not the child's fault. It would not even be fair to simply blame Minato, or even the mysterious Sharingan user who set the Kyuubi on Konoha in the first place. No, this was simply the response that a host of circumstances called for.

"My friends," he began, an easy jutsu amplifying his voice, "One month ago we suffered a grave loss, and a nigh-unprecedented horror. We lost many noble shinobi, who died with the Will of Fire burning bright so the rest of us might live. We suffered tragedy. But as our brethren fell, their spirits live on in us. Their dreams are carried forth in the lives of those they saved.

"There is one story of sacrifice you have not heard yet, however. My successor, Yondaime Hokage Namikaze Minato, defeated the Kyuubi—but not by dispersing the great beasts' chakra so it would reform later. No, my successor chose a much better solution—a much safer one that would ensure our safety for another generation to come." Here he turned slightly to the woman holding Naruto, who stumbled forward, shaking as she eagerly rid herself of the child into the Hokage's arms.

The Sandaime looked down at the child, who shifted to be closer to a friendly presence. It was a behavior entirely too trusting to be directed toward the man who was going to destroy his last vestiges of security.

 _Make him loved._

 _I'll try, Kushina._

"You see friends, Yondaime gave us the best security we could have, both against the beast itself and the other nations who may seek to do us harm. He gave us a Jinchurriki."

There was a sharp, collective intake of breath as people processed the information, followed by angry muttering.

It was the kind of thing that could lead to a mob.

Hiruzen quickly cut it off.

"Look, look at this child before you!" He said ardently, lifting the swaddled baby above his head for all to see. The infant squirmed, but did not cry. "He is your savior! He holds the demon back, at great cost. This human child…he is the greatest of us all. He is a hero, and deserves your respect and love." He returned the newborn to the crook of his arms with practiced ease—two children had taught him much about holding babies. "As of today, his status as a Jinchurriki is considered an S-rank secret, to which you are all privy. Mentioning this secret in his presence will be a punishable offense. This is so the child who saves us might grow normally, without prejudice." Hiruzen made an exaggerated show of cradling the child closer, physically and symbolically taking the baby into his own protection.

"Each of us has a responsibility toward this village, so that the children might live happily. His is the greatest of burdens, and should be treated with the respect it deserves. Should we betray our duty in this, we betray the final wishes of our beloved Yondaime, who wished for him to be reared as a hero. Only then, when we ignore such wishes, does the Yondaime truly die. Only when his will is ignored, along with the sacrifices of all those who have died before us, do the dead truly leave us."

Hiruzen could think of nothing more to say, and so walked back to the orphanage matron, dispelling the amplifying jutsu as he went. As he approached with the child the woman began to shake. He offered her the child, and the woman, with unsteady arms and desperate fear in her eyes, took him.

"He is precious to the village," the Hokage told her, "Take good care of him."

She nodded uncertainly. The Hokage walked away.

 _Minato, you fool. You've condemned the child who is your legacy. And you left me to do the dirty work._

* * *

The next few days saw three riots outside the orphanage, and two attempts at the baby's life by the orphanage staff. Those individuals were fired, executed, and replaced by undercover ANBU whose sole job was protecting the baby. So far they seemed to be doing their jobs admirably.

Hiruzen sighed as he watched yet another mob form outside Naruto's orphanage, only to be quelled by the Military Police.

 _Kushina, I tried. It just wasn't enough_.

* * *

Six years later, Sarutobi Hiruzen found himself walking through the markets of Konoha on a sunny weekend afternoon. The vendors were passing out their wares and haggling prices with customers. The air was vibrant with energy, various chakra signatures bubbling as shinobi and civilians mixed in the lighthearted atmosphere.

Despite the massive amounts of energy expended by the people around him, Hiruzen found it soothing. It was a reminder of what he fought for, of why he wore this hat in the first place, and so Hiruzen made it a point to visit the market at least once a month, once a week if he could get away with it.

Many called out to him, trying to gain the attention and favor of the village leader.

"Hokage-sama, try this dango! It's a recepie from Kiri!"

"Hokage-sama, I have exotic cloth from Suna!"

He smiled politely to acknowledge them, but did not heed any of the propositions. Accusations of favoritism were a headache he had no desire to deal with.

"Hey! I just want to get some kunai!" A young voice said angrily, coated with frustration and hurt. The Hokage did not allow himself to react and merely turned toward the commotion.

Naruto, their very own village pariah, was struggling to his feet outside a popular shinobi supply shop. The large, muscled owner was standing in the doorway.

"We have nothing to sell you," the man said, entire body tense.

Naruto gaped angrily at the unfairness. "I see training kunai _right there!_ "

By now most of the surrounding activity had halted in favor of watching the altercation. For once, none of them seemed to notice Hiruzen's presence.

"Like I said, nothing to sell to _you_."

Naruto seemed to freeze, and he glanced around. He did not notice Hiruzen, and the gazes of the surrounding villagers held no pity or compassion, and Naruto quickly looked back at his feet, shaking with suppressed tears. The Sandaime wondered if it was from rage or fear or humiliation. Perhaps a combination of all three.

Hiruzen scowled. This was a _child_. How did they justify it? Naruto sniffed once, and Hiruzen saw a tear fall to the dirt of the street even as the child rubbed at his eyes.

The Sandaime was about to put a stop to it, demand the salesman sell to the boy, but Naruto surprised him by straightening suddenly, face still wet with tears and blue eyes overflowing.

"Well fine!" He declared. "I'm going to be Hokage! And one day you'll beg me to buy you stuff! Do you hear me? I'm going to be Hokage, and there's _nothing you can do to stop me!_ "

Hiruzen was struck by the words, perhaps more than he should have been. He couldn't help it. As the young blonde boy declared his creed, the child could have been a carbon copy of his father at the most despairing moments of the war. Strong, capable, dependable. Of course, Naruto had an edge of brashness to him that reminded Hiruzen of Kushina.

Still, there was a certain fierceness about the boy, impossible to ignore in his stance and the ferocity of his gaze. The blue eyes glinted with tears and determination, an absolute stubbornness that left Hiruzen humbled.

 _So…this is your legacy then, Minato?_

There was a certain strength about him—this six-year-old surrounded by hatred and indifference, who could find love from no one.

 _Shinobi are those who endure,_ his teachers once told him, _Shinobi are the ones who continue when everyone else has given in, allowed themselves to bend._

None of the fools in the market seemed to see it. There was much scoffing from the villagers. They began to leave, file away from the crying child who was so fiercely clinging to a dream which was so much more than a title.

"I _said_ , I'm going to be Hokage! I promise!" The boy clenched his fists and it was finally too much for him to withstand the hatred of the villagers who should have loved him. He ran from the empty circle formed by the gawking villagers, not looking where he was going—

And ran straight into Hiruzen.

Naruto stepped back in surprise, "J-Jiji!" The large blue eyes became impossibly wider and the tears seemed momentarily forgotten on the whiskered cheeks.

Hiruzen smiled kindly, genuinely, "So you're going to become Hokage, Naruto-kun?"

The boy's eyes hardened, his little jaw squared, and his feet spread apart with the force of his conviction. "Yes! I'm going to be Hokage someday!"

Hiruzen's smile widened, "Well you'll have to work hard then."

Naruto nodded enthusiastically, "I will! I'll work harder than anyone, and then I'll surpass you! And Yondaime! And everyone else too!"

Sarutobi laughed, but something about the tightening of his spine indicated that the force of that promise was not something to be taken lightly. Hiruzen found himself remembering his student's first book, the one Naruto was named for. Jirayah claimed that the great Shinobi were the ones who had the guts to never give up. Somehow, Hiruzen felt Naruto might live up to his namesake.

"Well then you'll have to work very hard. The Yondaime was a great Shinobi."

Perhaps that was what had bothered him so much about Minato's last actions in the past six years. Minato had, essentially, given up. Or at least, he'd believed his successor had. But what if the man somehow glimpsed the person his child would become? What if he'd glimpsed this determination, this force stronger than steel within the boy's soul?

"I'm going to be greater," Naruto said quietly, without doubt.

 _I think your father thought so too,_ he decided, _and I think I might forgive him for it._

"If you never give up, I'm sure you'll get to where you want to go," Hiruzen said smiling. The Sandaime set an old, weathered hand on the boy's blond head. The thick locks pushed against his hand, like even his hair refused to bend to reality. "Now, would you perhaps like to get some ramen?"

The boy's eyes lit up, and that almost unearthly determination sank back beneath the boy's skin. "Ichiraku's! Yatta!"

Hiruzen chuckled, and moved his hand to the boy's shoulder, steering him toward the ramen stand. "Cat here will buy you some training kunai. Do you need shuriken too, for the Academy?"

Naruto blushed, shook his head, "Just the kunai. I don't _need_ the shuriken."

Hiruzen considered him a moment, and then elected to up the boy's monthly allowance. It wasn't designed with shinobi in mind anyway. "Well if you don't now, you will soon enough."

Cat nodded, and Hiruzen knew she would also take appropriate action against the shop owner's prejudice.

The boy was already chattering excitedly about all the cool things he was excited to do with them, which apparently included everything from making a sandwich to throwing an unbalanced kunai a thousand yards with accuracy.

Hiruzen marveled. Five minutes ago the boy was crying. Children bounce back quickly but this seemed extreme. But that steely determination was still there, under the skin, and Hiruzen could see it with every glint of the boy's eyes and ever passionate declaration about his work. The optimism was inspiring, and the lack of blame was humbling.

 _Minato, I think I finally understand your legacy._

The boy jumped onto the stool and ordered a miso ramen.

 _And I must say, my boy, I think it might be the greatest gift you've ever given us._

* * *

A/N

This was longer than intended. It's also probably pretty rough since I didn't proofread.

In other news, I rewrote the first chapter, and am working on the second. After writing this I wasn't quite satisfied with the first two.

To be clear, Sarutobi is very bitter toward Minato here because the man kind of left him in a lurch. Minato was the savior, and then he just went and died. The reason Sarutobi is able to love Naruto in the end here is because he saw him as the solution to the problems he was left with, and proof that Minato hadn't abandoned them.

Anyway. Peace Out.


End file.
